


The Words We Leave Unspoken

by kaibasetos



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4190826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaibasetos/pseuds/kaibasetos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is this feeling I get when I am with you. There is our future house burning like a star on the hill. There is our dark flickering shadow. There is my hand on fire in your hand on fire, my body on fire above your body on fire, our tongues made of ash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Words We Leave Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, it's been a while. This isn't anything particularly different or inventive in comparison to the works I've written in the past, but I felt like writing for them and this is what came out. I literally wrote this sitting in my bathroom floor at 2am even though I have to wake up for work at 8am, so I hope y'all enjoy it!

This is when you discern, through meticulous analyzation and critical thought process, whether it is your heart or your head that matters more in the end.

Kaiba stands at the window of his office, staring down through shatterproof glass. Down into the depths of rush hour traffic, red lights and green lights and the shouting of people engulfed in their own lives and paying no mind to the existence of others. His hands clasped behind his back, he watches and he allows himself to drift. The tint of the blue sky, orange sun, skyscraper reflection of white clouds falls across him like a veil and paints him a smeared mosaic of color.

His thoughts present themselves like lines of code, linear and systemic, laid before him to peruse at his leisure. A thought always ends properly before the next one begins. He sorts them out as though organizing a file folder of his emotions and intentions, and all but one function fits the scheme.

He thinks of Jounouchi.

He thinks of wild blond hair, warm brown eyes. He thinks of a mouth filthy enough to spit obscenities yet pure enough to weave clumsy symphonies of praise for those dearest to him. He thinks of hands too weary to be so steady, shoulders too proud to bear the weight they’ve been put under, a mouth that has surely given form to too many melancholy words to be smiling. He thinks of a quick-witted, ambitious mind and the reckless, foolish heart that puts it to shame.

He thinks of how wrong it is, how ridiculous, how incomprehensible, this fervent attraction and this continued romance -- and he thinks of how he revels in it still. It brings such life to a body that is so young but feels like ancient ruin.

His thoughts spill into one another like paint on canvas, abstract art rather than code, impassioned rather than logical, and he steps away from the window to sit at his desk. He composes himself, but though he’s focused his heart wanders elsewhere. It sleeps beneath a bed that does not belong to him, beating a muffled rhythm against the carpet. It feels as though his very blood aches with craving. Jounouchi.

It is another two hours of indifferent work before he realizes the moon has replaced the sun as his companion, and he is alone in the pitch black night.

He is driving back from the office with the radio turned down to nothing, his eyes fixed hard on the road. His body is tense, his actions automatic. He doesn’t even second guess himself when he flicks the handle and his right blinker bursts to life in the turn lane.

He does, however, spare a moment’s wondering when he finds his car stopped in the parking lot of Jounouchi’s apartment complex.

#23 belongs to Jounouchi. He should know. He paid the rent on it until Jounouchi could find a steady job. He has memorized the apartment like he has memorized the ins and outs of a business meeting now -- one-bedroom, small kitchen, quaint, disorganized. Beige carpet, white curtains against white walls, a bed with too many blankets piled on top of it for them to ever all be properly accounted for. It’s almost a second home, if anything could hold the honor.

It is only when he stops in front of the door and raises his hand to knock that he hesitates, yet he doesn’t quite know why. This is new territory, but when has Kaiba Seto ever shown so much as a tremble of reluctance in the face of new territory?

Then again, the weight of it hasn’t been quite as hefty until now.

Jounouchi makes the decision for him.

His face is already cheerful when he opens the door, but the way his eyes brighten just a bit when he sees who is on his doorstep makes Kaiba’s heart pound, recovered from the shadows where it lay. “Kaiba,” Jounouchi says, smiling. Just two syllables, surprised and gentle, but enough to put historic poets to shame. Kaiba wants to hear it again, but there’s time for that later. “Thought you might’ve been Yuugi or somethin’. I wasn’t expectin’ you here.”

Kaiba lets his arm fall limp at his side. He tries to find what to say, still and silent in Jounouchi’s doorway, not quite bathed in the glow of light that pours out of it. He decides on the vaguest honesty. “I wasn’t expecting to be here.”

Jounouchi’s brow furrows. He crosses his arms, leaned against the wall right inside the door. “Why? Ya got bad news? You’re actin’ like you’ve got bad news.”

Kaiba shakes his head at that. The way Jounouchi treats him sometimes, still searching for the ominous storm cloud of his former self; the closed-off shell, the speaker of cutting words, the issuer of the frigid glare from across the room, the bearer of all bad news. He supposes he deserves that, however misguided it may be.

“Nothing’s wrong, Jounouchi.” He resists the urge to throw in a half-hearted insult for good measure, almost as habit. “I was on my way home and I suppose autopilot played its role.”

“Autopilot?” Jounouchi certainly is grinning now. “You’re sayin’ your autopilot brought you to my apartment? Now that’s a hell of an excuse if I ever heard one.”

Kaiba regards Jounouchi shrewdly, the light of the lamps inside forming a halo around him. They are inky black sky and golden sunlight brought together. His tone is insistent, but not combative. “It isn’t an excuse.”

Jounouchi waves him off, laughing. “Whatever, Kaiba. You gonna come in, or what?”

“No.” Jounouchi seems caught off-guard by his answer, but then, Kaiba has always loved causing that reaction. Seeing him flounder, if only for an instant, unsure of how to process or react. That is a reward in and of itself. “I believe I can say what needs to be said without entering your apartment.”

“Okay, now you’re really soundin’ like you got bad n--”

Jounouchi’s sentence cuts off slowly, as though falling down a sloped decline. Kaiba moves towards him without giving himself time to think, to breathe, his heart picking up a maddeningly loud rush in his ears, and he kisses him. His hand comes to rest in Jounouchi’s hair, fingers entwining themselves there, and as they kiss again and again he catalogues each and every thing. Jounouchi’s hands finding his hips, his back, skin under his shirt. Jounouchi’s mouth against his, warm like flame and fierce like longing. Jounouchi’s breathing, coming short, stuttered, harsh. The feeling of each strand of hair under his fingertips and every shift of movement against him, then into him. It is heavenly choir, it is the final meal before a death sentence, it is explosions of celebration at all new beginnings across the world. It is consuming and desperate and _home_. This is home.

When Kaiba pulls away he waits just long enough for Jounouchi to open his eyes, alive with the effects of a pleasantly stupefied smile and an uncategorized hunger that he recognizes in himself. Then he lets go and crosses the threshold into the apartment, walking through the living room. “Now I’ll come in.”

Jounouchi reels for an instant, still unraveling himself from the web of the moment, then tilts his head around to look at Kaiba with an eyebrow raised. “Ya didn’t say what you wanted to, though.”

Kaiba surveys his apartment, noting everything that’s changed since he’s last been there. His mind is everywhere and nowhere all at once, scattered static. He takes a deep breath and looks back at Jounouchi, expression calm and indecipherable aside from the hint of a smirk.

“Perhaps you just weren’t listening closely enough. Would you like me to say it again?”

This is when you discern, through rare impulsive action and raw sense of feeling, that your head is worth nothing without the presence of your heart.


End file.
